Narrative Clip used in Swedish museum exhibition

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The Stockholm County Museum (Stockholms läns museum) is currently showing an exhibition called Contemporary Photos (Samtidsbild). Narrative worked with the museum to see how the Narrative Clip could be utilized to enhance one of the exhibition’s objectives. Read our interview with photographer and curator of photography collections at the museum, Elizabeth Boogh, below.

What is the Stockholm County Museum all about?

The museum works with heritage in the greater Stockholm area. This includes the history and care of old buildings, archeology, public art, sloyd (slöjd) as well as cultural history, where the photography collections are one part.

Tell us about the current exhibition.

The exhibition is based on a competition which we held during the fall of 2013. It had three themes: everyday life, communication and trends in society. We received over 1300 entries from 123 photographers. All the photographs are shown in the exhibition.

The background of the competition and exhibition is the museum’s aim to collect digitally born photography from people living our region. We want to expand our archives by the collection and inclusion of a diversity of images from many different people. We believe that our mutual history should be built by the community and not the museum alone.

Why did you want to use the Narrative Clip?

Using the Narrative Clip presents an exciting new way to take and collect personal photographs. The utilization raises interesting questions for the museum and archives about what and whose images should be preserved for the future generations. The Clip produces a vast amount of images and it could be of great value to the museums to be able to employ them.

We asked one of the photographers who has contributed with a number of images for the exhibition if she would like to wear and use the Narrative Clip for a day. Then we made a selection of the total amount of images produced during the day which we are now showing as a slideshow in the exhibition.

What kind of feedback do you have from your (and the artists’) time using the Clip?

Before using the clip we discussed the concern for privacy matters. Where and when is it appropriate and/or inappropriate to use the clip? The photographer wanted to be fully comfortable with wearing the clip in all situations. For example we chose not to show images from when she was picking up her son from school as many parents do not consent to photography in the school and of students/children. The experience of using the Narrative Clip was overall fun and enjoyable and it gave many “AHAs” when looking back on what actually happened during the day.

When and where can we visit the exhibition?

The exhibition Samtidsbild is shown at Stockholms läns museum in Sickla, Nacka from the 26th of April to the 5th of October.

Anything else you’d like to add?

It would be very interesting to further explore how museums can utilize the Narrative Clip and collect images from people wearing the camera.